Reweaving the Threads of Time
by Kadevi
Summary: There is a different story behind the Golden Sun. What you know now – merely testimony of how time can be rewoven with a soul and spirit strong enough to change the past. This tale was what was supposed to happen. It was what did happen.


Gust: I hope you know you're going to confuse all your readers. 

Well then, that's just too bad isn't it? Disclaimer, please?

Gust: *cough* Golden Sun does not, in any way, shape, or form, belong to Kadevi. She only owns this measly idea for a one-shot and the characters.

Now that's more like it. Thank you. On to the confusing story.

Gust: *grumble grumble* You can say that again...

**Reweaving the Threads of Time**

**By Kadevi**

_There is a different story behind the Golden Sun. What you know now – merely testimony of how time can be rewoven with a soul and spirit strong enough to change the past._

_This tale was what was supposed to happen._

_It was what **did** happen._

_NO!_

He hit the ground with his knees, and then caught himself with his hands before he could meet the ground with his nose.

A sad laugh rang through the air. "Give it up, Territh. You cannot hope to defeat me in single combat. I'm surprised you managed to chase me all the way across the world to stop me! That you are here, dying at my feet... is quite an accomplishment indeed."

He dragged himself back up, using his sword for an uncomfortable amount of support. "No, I will not give up. What you are planning is... complete folly! You could destroy the world with what you plan to do! Please reconsider what you plan to do-"

The other – not as exhausted, not nearly as strength-spent as he was– shook his head. "It is not folly. This power – I must have it to save _her_. It is the only way..."

Sadness shuddered through his tired body. "She is DEAD, Cheis! You can't bring her back from the dead. What has passed, has passed... taking the power for yourself will save nobody, will help nobody. Least of all yourself."

And it was now that the other who spun, enraged, to fire a blast of ice at him. Pain laced through his very being, and cold knives tore at his skin, sending lashes of blood flying through the cold air, this frozen wasteland. He barely managed to keep himself from collapsing, but he gasped at the stinging bolts of ice. Cheis, meanwhile, still stood. When he looked up at him, he thought he saw in his eyes...

_Remorse?_

Then it was gone with a flash of lightning, and the eyes of his friend turned cold once more. _Gods, the storm is getting closer! I only have to delay time... and then I might be able to defeat him._

"Territh... Why won't you let me do this?" Cheis asked quietly, hair waving in the wind. He had the bag grasped tightly in his hand, shaking with long-locked emotion.

"You hold the fate of the world in your hands, Cheis... Friend, _listen to me!_ You can't-" Territh had to stop, and he choked on the blood welling up in his mouth. He hauled himself to his feet with his blade again. "You can't reverse what has already happened, Cheis," he gasped out, tears welling up behind his eyes. "As much as we both miss Ressa, it is impossible to bring back the dead without changing them. You can't hope to get back the person who we knew and loved. In the end, you would only be disappointed."

He coughed again, tried to cast some kind of healing magic. He knew he couldn't afford to lose any more blood, but he also knew he hadn't so much as a drop of magic left in him. He had to heal his injuries, had to heal them enough that he could stand and _fight_ Cheis, and stop him from putting that stone onto that pedestal. But even as he thought this, his former friend was shaking his head.

"I have to take the chance... Because I can't bear to live without her..." He choked out, clutching that small, significant bag all the more tighter.

"And you would risk the world to bring her back?" Territh asked quietly, blue eyes bright on his face.

"I'm not like you, 'Terr... caring about everyone and everything. After... Ressa, I've not been able to open my heart again," Cheis said softly over the rumbling thunder, almost inaudible with the increasing noises. The storm was so close now – winds were flinging their cloaks and capes all over, and Cheis' longer hair was blowing freely. Territh was hard put to keep himself standing, for the winds were growing more powerful with each passing moment, and up so high as they were on the aerie, they were many more times stronger than they would be on the ground. A fall from this high up would surely kill him, and allow Cheis to grab the power of Alchemy for his own desires.

Territh tried one last time to convince Cheis to change his mind. "Please, Cheis... why can't we just go back home and be friends as we always have? Life would be infinitely better with Ressa with us, but... we can't change things now!"

"I have to bring her back! Don't you understand?! I killed her! _I killed Ressa, and I have to change that!!"_

"You can't destroy the world to have what you want!" Territh cried desperately, moving towards his friend, sword dormant in his hand. His other reached out – as if he could somehow, by touching Cheis - who always used to be the sensible one and yet also so passionate about life – he could make him understand the gravity of what he wanted to do.

But Cheis reacted in a way that Territh could never have expected. In a way that, if he'd had complete control over his senses and emotions, he never would have before this whole crazy chase around the world had begun.

Cheis reeled back, but then when he spotted the sword in Territh's hand, something snapped. He charged forward, unsheathing his own glinting blade in the flashing lightning. Territh tried to stop, but on the slick platform he slipped and thudded painfully to the ground, his blade sliding too far away to reach. Time slowed, and Territh could feel all his senses coming alive.

_Thunder roars._

_The rain pelts against everything._

_My clothes are wet._

_Cheis is so... angry..._

_He is different._

_Not the Cheis I knew..._

He watched with almost comical indifference as that blade descended upon him. Square between the eyes. And he looked past the blade – saw Cheis' eyes, almost devoid of emotion, but wild with it at the same time. They were panicked and deep in them, Territh could almost make out one lone, clear cry – 

_Help me..._

His attention refocused on the blade, and suddenly everything was moving quickly again. He reflexively put up a hand to defend himself from the sharp, sharp blade, which was coming down at him with all the force of Cheis behind it-

But it never came.

Territh looked up and saw the impossible.

There was Ressa kneeling between him and Cheis like some apparition of Luna, with two daggers in her hand, and Cheis' trapped blade between them.

Ressa, who had fallen from the aerie of Mercury Lighthouse.

Ressa, who was supposed to be dead.

Cheis' ice-blue eyes went wide, and his hands fell limp. His sword fell to the ground between him and the girl he loved.

"R-R-Ressa?" He managed to stutter. Territh could barely manage the same feat, with his teeth chattering in the intense cold that permeated his clothing and the aura of fighting-trance he'd had before. It was only now he noticed the freezing trickles of water running into his eyes, and the numbness in his feet and hands. His hair was plastered to his skin, but he could not get past the fog in his mind of Ressa. She was...

_Here._

Unbelievably alive.

"Ressa, love of my heart, I cannot believe that you live!" Cheis cried in euphoria.

It was smashed with her next words.

"How can you possibly believe that I still return your love after you've tried to kill Territh?" She asked, voice breaking in sorrow and anger. "I-I- Right now, I can only hate you for what you have done, by doing that which is forbidden to us. Instead of guarding them, but trying to light the elemental lighthouses. No... I can't love you anymore. Not after everything you've done," she said, voice cracking painfully.

Once again, Madness took Cheis in Her embrace.

With impossible speed, he grabbed his sword from the ground and plunged it into her body. Territh could only watch the blade pierce through her heart and reemerging from her back, the cold steel pulling her soul from her body. She turned her head and looked down at Territh. Her eyes... they were so clear, not filled with pain at all... her beautiful, deep blue eyes locked with his, and whispered words he could not hear, but saw and felt instead-

"I love you Territh."

And when Cheis pulled his sword out of her lifeless body, he grabbed Territh's tunic and dragged him to his feet. Territh was vaguely aware that Ressa's body fell between them lay motionless there... vaguely aware that his own heart was crying at this second death that was shattering the pieces into smaller shards.

"If you had to kill me, Territh," Cheis hissed mockingly from between his teeth, "to stop me from lighting this last lighthouse- would you, dear, old friend?"

Without hesitation- "No."

Pain, at first – then shock and cold numbed the cold steel, wet with both rain and the blood of Ressa, the only girl he'd ever loved. He stared at Cheis blankly, and Cheis returned his stare back. There was nothing in those eyes – his friend was lost to Mars Lighthouse's fiery anger.

"Then I am sorry, Territh. If only you were not such a weak person... you might have been able to stop me." As everything became gray, Territh was aware of a great light as the lighthouse was lit, the ground beneath him shaking soundlessly-__

Then nothing.

 _Nothing. Just dark._

_Things cannot end this way. Destiny, let me go back and change things – I need only one more chance. She will not die this time – and I will stop him._

_I MUST._

_He wished Destiny to give him another chance, and Destiny did._

_The rest – you already know._

*These are translations of some words I looked up, then twisted around to form something resembling a name of who I wanted it to represent:  
Ressa – wasser [German – water]  
Cheis – eis [German – ice], schnee [German – snow]  
Territh – terra [Italian – earth]

Please tell me what you thought! It is quite strange... perhaps even out of place. So – feedback! Please! Feel free to wonder about whom my characters represent! ~Kadevi


End file.
